Emalia fluttered her eyes and focused on the wooden ceiling above. She didn't remember for a moment where she was and allowed her eyes to rove. Her body felt rather stiff and she hadn't yet moved when a voice reached her ears. "Ahh! You are awake! I had feared you might not make it, either..."
"Wh... what... happened?"
"I found you had fallen asleep in the fields below. Passed out it would seem. You have been very ill for several months now."
Emalia suddenly recalled everything - her being drug to this plane by Colin, her being trapped in this very same cabin, her being unable to find anywhere to go in this maddening landscape, and the fact that everyone was telling her she was ill from some disease Grobnak carried.
"And... I am terribly sorry to tell you this, but your baby did not make it."
Emalia's weakened body seemed to sink further into itself. She looked up at the face of Halethiel, tears in her eyes. She was too weak to seek Brin's form. Too weak to verify anything other than the fact that Brin was no longer within her. She had no choice but to believe the emaciated man. She found only enough energy to struggle to a sitting position and raise her hand to wipe at her eyes. Only then did she notice her skin looking almost the color of ash. "On a brighter note," the lank figure continued, "since you have regained consciousness, it would seem that the illness has run its course, and you should be better soon."
Emalia barely heard the words for her own sobbing. She requested Halethiel show her the body of her child, and at the sight of the tiny coffin, her heart broke.
"How... I wasn't sick... I was so sure..."
"We all make mistakes," Halethiel said. "We believe that this happened at some point during your contact with this... Grobnak."
"Grobnak... did this... to me? I can't believe... I can't believe it..."
Emalia could not detect any deception, especially with her current condition. She was informed Colin had been absent for quite some time - though he had apparently visited her weekly, since her falling into sleep. Her worry for her husband increased her "illness," as did the final view of her child - a small, blackening body.
Emalia wanted to grieve, but was almost too exhausted to do even that. She lay back on the bed, growing even more weak. She could not know that her power was cut off from the planet - there was no freeflowing lifestream here to help heal her. She could not know the depths of the lies told to her. She only requested to be left alone - unaware that she, and the body of what she thought was her child, would be transported out of the plane as soon as sleep took her over.
